Turnabout is fair play when it comes to missionary work
One of the things that's always struck me as odd about life in Roslindale is the preponderance of Mormon missionaries. Year in and year out, whenever the weather's nice, you see the pairs of strapping young crewcutted white guys in short-sleeve white shirts, wearing ties and dark pants and carrying clipboards as they walk up and down Washington Street looking for potential converts. Why Roslindale? Shouldn't they be in, I dunno, West Africa or Samoa or someplace?
Over on Remember Jamaica Plain, Mark reposts an 1876 article about a time in American history when Boston sent forth missionaries to convert settlers on the frontier, way out in Missouri and Texas (and also lay plans to convert the "ignorant and priest-ridden" masses in Mexico):
Nelson Kingsbury, Esq., the secretary of the New England department of the society, presided, and in the course of an address in which he set forth the general character of the work performed by the society during the past fifty-two years, he said that in that period there had been established by agents and missionaries of the society, principally at the West, 63,793 Bible and Sunday Schools. The total number of pupils represented by these was 2,745,000; teachers 420,000: aid furnished to 7000 destitute scholars; money expended in furnishing such aid, $517,000.
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Missionary Work
There are two types of missionaries:
The help people and thus help people find God because you saved lives type
The pure prosletyzing type
Mormon missionaries do actually head to South and Central America and Mexico to do aid work, although most of those are female if my experienced sources are correct. It isn't considered a classic "manly" mission to do that work.
The ones we see out and about are out to save your soul.
Mormons and their ickiness
Mormon missionaries, in their minds, are in fact converting the "savages" of Roslindale in this very day and age, just as Christians did (and do) in the Victorian age, traveling the globe to bring civilization and the great white hope to darker continents. Tell me--have any of you white folks ever been approached on a bus in Roslindale? Have you ever been accosted on the T by one of these Mormon jokers? I have NEVER seen them approach anyone who was not a minority. Do they figure that they are easier marks? More vulnerable? More in need of their lily white message?
It wasn't in Roslindale
but while in Honolulu I was approached by a pair on the bus. They didn't tell me this, but when I asked a local why there were so many missionaries in the Islands they told me that the Mormons believe Pacific Islanders to be the lost tribe of Israel. I have no idea if thats true or not, but I certainly wasn't accosted by them. We had a pleasant conversation, and when they got off they left me with a picture of Jesus and a way to get more information on the back.
I'm white also white, or haole in the local parlance. They didn't seem to have a problem talking to me as opposed to the dozen Filipinos on the bus who made up the majority of my neighborhood.
They did tell me that they were not allowed in Waikiki, so after I moved there I didn't see them too often anymore. The ones I spoke to on the bus informed me that since Waikiki was 1) basically all tourists and 2) a massive den of iniquity, that they were not allowed in.
Native Americans
... including Mexicans of mixed spanish/native ancestry are often targeted by the Mormons for reasons of being a lost tribe. They have this whole theological belief system built around this, with stories of Christ wandering around the Americas after resurrection for some time.
Thats right
I think they believe the 1st century Jews sailed across the Mediterranean, across the Atlantic, landed in the Americas and became the Aztecs. I thought it was a lot for my church to ask me to believe God became man, died, and then rose body and soul on the 3rd day.
Oh yeah
I grew up in a predominantly white town and we'd see Mormon missionaries every couple of years, usually in the spring. Generally, I don't find anything they say or do particularly offensive, and I certainly respect their commitment. But on a couple of occasions, after I made it clear that I wasn't interested, a couple of the missionaries implied that I was either missing out on the one true religion or that I had made a poor choice in my current religious affiliation. I guess I found that kind of offensive. However, I probably mentioned that I was Greek Orthodox, so who can blame them? ;)
- stummo
Not in Roslindale, but yes I've been approached
on a bus in Cambridge, on the green line, and in Watertown Square. I'm white. I thought they were friendly and really weren't bothered by it since they weren't pushy about it. The missionaries on the bus were women too, which I hadn't seen before in this area. I wished I had asked them about how they ended up in Boston rather than another area.
Mitt's position on the Missionary Position
According to the Globe, Romney received a draft
deferment due to his missionary work during the
Vietnam War:
boston.com/...romney/articles/part1_side_2/
Seems kind of lame to me. While they were scooping up
working class kids all over the place Mitt got
a bye.